Auburn Tigershead coach Hugh Freeze is now 0-3 in his career against the Georgia Bulldogs. Freeze and the Tigers have held leads over Georgia in 2023 and 2025, but coach Kirby Smart and Georgia prevailed both times.
This time, Georgia overcame a 10-0 deficit that was inches away from becoming a 17-0 hole. However, Auburn quarterback Jackson Arnold fumbled the ball right before he crossed over the goal line and Georgia recovered.
Freeze could not believe that the officials ruled Arnold’s play as a fumble instead of a touchdown. He thought the ball broke the plane of the goal line before being jarred loose.
“I have no clue. I think this is…” Freeze said in an heated interview at halftime. “Our kids have played really hard, really well. We should be up more. We dominated the first half. We’re due a break, maybe, one of these damn times.”
Auburn entered halftime with a 10-3 lead, but was unable to score the rest of the game as Georgia went on to win 20-10. Much like how Auburn dominated the first half, Georgia returned the favor in the second half.
The Tigers aren’t happy after getting a couple of tough officiating breaks in their road loss at Oklahoma earlier this season. Similar to the Oklahoma game, Auburn was unable to make enough plays to win after things went wrong.
“It sure feels like we’re not getting many breaks,” Freeze said after the Georgia game. “I mean, there were a lot of things, but I felt like we broke the plane. All you have to do is… the nose of the ball has to break the plane. I thought that we had a pretty good shot of that. But it didn’t go our way.”
Freeze also had gripes with how Kirby Smart appeared to call a timeout to avoid a delay of game in the second half, but instead Smart said that he was clapping (because the Auburn defense was simulating the snap with a clap). Georgia was given time to take the snap instead of being charged a timeout of having a delay of game penalty.
“I don’t know how… they should have had either a delay of game or a timeout,” Freeze said. “Not a whole new play. Still not sure what happened there.”
Following the loss to Georgia, Freeze is just 14-17 in his career at Auburn. He will be on the hot seat for the remainder of the season.
This article originally appeared on UGA Wire: Hugh Freeze tries to cope with another deflating loss to Georgia
